During assembly of an axle, a pinion seal is assembled between an axle companion flange and a carrier/bearing cage. The pinion seal includes a sleeve portion, which is mounted to and rotates with the axle companion flange, and a seal portion, which is mounted to and is stationary with the carrier/bearing cage. The two end up, then, in sliding engagement at seal contact locations. This requires an axial spacing between certain portions of the two components to assure that the only contact is at the seal contact locations. Thus, in order to accomplish the proper installation of the sleeve portion and seal portion, a contacting spacer is typically employed between the sleeve and the seal. This is particularly true if one attempts to assemble the two portions as a single unit. However, a contacting spacer located between the seal and sleeve components will generally cause, higher torque loss, additional noise, and increased heat generation due to the additional friction between components.
Also, during assembly, since the sleeve portion and the seal portion are typically assembled separately, this may allow contamination to enter the seal. Consequently, it is desirable to have a unitized seal where the two portions can be assembled as one. Being able to assemble the pinion seal as a unitized assembly would also be desirable in order to improve the assembly process.
Thus, it is desirable to have a unitized pinion seal for axle pinion applications that can be assembled as a unit and have a bearing configuration suitable for supporting and spacing the stationary (seal) and rotating (sleeve) components during assembly of the axle.